The Congo is today known as Zaire. Before 1960
it was a Belgian colony. It became independent on 30 June 1960 and the country
was soon thrown into chaos. The Belgian government had done very little to
prepare the Congo for independence. All the important jobs in government,
industry and the army were performed by white Belgians. For example, there was
not a single black doctor in the whole country. This created a very difficult
situation for the Prime Minister of the newly independent state, Patrice
Lumumba.

Almost immediately, trouble broke out. The
white Belgian officers in the national army refused to promote any black
Congolese men to join them as officers. The soldiers mutinied and attacked both
their officers and other white people.

The problems faced by Lumumba soon increased.
The Belgian government sent paratroops to defend European people in the Congo.
At the same time the copper-rich province of Katanga broke away from the rest
of the Congo. The Katangan leader, Moise Tshombe, declared Katanga to be an
independent state. Tshombe used white mercenaries to build up a new army in
Katanga. He received support and encouragement from many Belgians and from
Belgian mining companies who still wanted to have a presence in the new state.

Lumumba turned to the United Nations for help.
The Secretary General of the UN was Dag Hammarskjold. He was keen to take
action because he wanted to show that the UN could bring peace to the trouble
spots of the world. Following his advice, on 13 July 1960 the Security Council
agreed to restore order in the Congo and 4,500 UN soldiers immediately flew out
to the troubled African country.

Eventually there was a force of 8,000 UN
troops in the Congo. The Security Council ordered Belgium to withdraw its
troops. The Belgians agreed to pull out of much of the country but they refused
to leave Katanga. The UN forces were successful in restoring order in much of
the country but they were not able to stop the fighting between the forces of
Lumumba and those of Tshombe.

Lumumba soon had a bitter argument with the UN
about their role in the Congo. He wanted UN soldiers to attack Katanga and end
Tshombe's breakaway government. Hammarskjold was not happy at the idea of the
UN becoming involved in a civil war and he refused to invade Katanga.

Superpower mischief

The position of Hammarskjold was undermined by
each of the two superpowers. They insisted on pursuing their own policies,
independent of the Security Council. The Soviet leader, Khrushchev, publicly
criticized Hammarskjold for not offering enough help to Lumumba. The USSR
wanted to show itself to be a friend of newly independent countries and it
strongly supported Lumumba.

In August Lumumba ignored the United Nations,
turned directly to the Soviet Union, and tried to invade Katanga with Soviet
help. Despite being a member of the Security Council, the government of the
USSR disregarded UN policy and provided Lumumba with military aircraft for his
invasion plan but the attack failed. A month later, in September 1960, Lumumba
was overthrown by one of his own army officers, Joseph Mobutu.

The US government gave secret support to
Mobutu in his bid for power because they thought that he would be more
pro-Western than Lumumba. Lumumba was eventually captured by the forces of
Tshombe and murdered in January 1961. The debate about how the UN should act in
the Congo led to angry scenes at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in
September 1960. Khrushchev argued that Hammarskjold's job should be abolished.
Despite these criticisms, Hammarskjold remained in his post.

The end of the emergency

By early 1961 UN intervention had not brought
peace to the Congo. With the help of white mercenaries, Tshombe remained in
control of the breakaway region of Katanga. The Security Council tried to stop
a civil war by announcing in February that, except for the UN forces, all
foreign troops must leave the country. Tshombe refused co-operate. Hammarskjold
was killed in an air accident in the Congo in September.

The new Secretary-General was a Burmese man
called U Thant. He took a tougher line with Tshombe and in December 1961 UN
troops began fighting the white mercenaries and other Katangan forces. By the
end of 1962, after periods of negotiation and renewed fighting, the UN
succeeded in expelling the mercenaries. In January 1963 the Katangan leader,
Tshombe, went into exile and the Congo was reunited. The UN had, at last,
brought peace to the country but its own reputation had suffered.

Some of the UN soldiers acted with brutality
during the fighting in Katanga. People were unhappy at the sight of
'peacekeepers' involved in fighting. The UN forces left the Congo in 1964 and a
year later Joseph Mobutu became President of the united country. The Congo
crisis was over but people have disagreed ever since about whether the UN
operation was a success or a mistake.